The Person That Became Christen

Every child in town seemed to like me a lot...

But the person who lived inside my head did NOT!

I hated myself inside and it felt like such treason

Now, please don't ask why. I didn’t quite yet know the reason.

It could be my head wasn't screwed on just right.

It could be, perhaps, that I always felt fright.

But I think that the most likely reason to be

May have been that I was a woman inside you see.

Whatever the reason, my heart or my soul

I rued each day that I was not truly made whole,

Looking inside myself with that virtual frown,

I felt incomplete and that just brought me down

While everyone I knew seemed happier all around

I felt every other person was simply bequeathed

With a blissful congruity of their gender beneath

As they lived their lives plainly without being sheathed

“And they seem so happy!” I muttered in a way no one could hear

“I’m becoming a man in not many years!”

Then I thought in my head, my thoughts were just humming

“I MUST find some way to stop a man from becoming!”

For one day soon, I knew plainly without joy

I would awake one day finding no longer a boy.

And then! Oh, the Fear! Oh, the Fear!

Fear! Fear! Fear!

The one thing I was becoming! The FEAR!

And the more I thought of this, what was I to do?

The more I did think that I hadn’t a clue

“Why for my childhood years I’ve pretended to be

Something I wasn’t at all and to myself so untrue!”

And then I had an idea. A wonderfully unmentionable idea!

"I know just what to do!” I thought to myself

I raided mom’s closet for a pass at her clothes

I’d been wanting to do this for… goodness who knows!

Dressed as a woman I felt as the girl

From the youngest of ages when my hair had such curls

I tried on some makeup and I perfected the look

Many years in the making and effort it took

And then one day when I had some time free

I was dressed at home as the woman I see

When suddenly and as quick as a flash,

My parents car drove up the driveway so fast

I changed just as quick as I could

Hiding my stash so no one would see,

When I heard the footsteps of mom coming in

I knew just then what trouble I was in!

My mom entered the house and came to my room

I was startled but careful not to let on a clue

My mom looked around, I thought it was clear

I had put everything away! There was nothing to fear!

My mom looked down and she saw a high heel

A sinking feeling came over me I truly did feel!

She stared at the heels and said. “Why?”

“Why do you have high heels in your room? WHY?”

But, you know I was caught and I had no real tricks

I thought up a lie but I knew it wouldn’t stick

“Why, dear mother”, I decided that I couldn’t quite lie

“These are my own heels!” I openly decried.

My admonition to mom went over like lead

She scolded me in earnest with what I verbally said

And mom went off on me that she thought I was gay

And I told her I wasn’t but no more could I say

She told me to get rid of my stash of clothes that day

So I took all my clothes, I took them away

I drove to a dumpster that very same day

In my closet was nothing feminine left I must say

And to not wake up tomorrow was something I’d pray

And the one crumb of girl that was left inside me

Was buried away for no one to see.

And so for many years I pretended again to be,

Someone everyone else saw that I didn’t see

And the thoughts in my head that were constantly drumming

Of a man I was expected to be and becoming.

And then one day, many years from then

That spirit in my soul came back again.

I paused and I thought of my life lived in fear

Of being true to myself was never quite clear

I did hear that voice from deep and down low

The one from my soul and it began to grow.

Why this sound was the one I had years ago!

But it couldn’t be so! But it continued to grow!

I listened to the voice this time without fear.

It was the woman within and she was now so quite near!

I thought to myself with such surprise.

That I must be true to my very own eyes.

And so it was on that emotionally charged day

That I began a journey that would find me my way

To thine own self be true I knew I must say.

And what happened then? Well my life began in earnest I’d say

My contentment of self grew many times that day!

And then I stopped for a minute for I just didn’t know

I puzzled and puzzed: "How could it be so?"

It came without ribbons! It came without tags!

It came without hormones, surgeries nor lags"

I puzzled and puzzed till my puzzler was sore.

Then Christen thought of something she hadn't before.

Maybe transition, she thought, doesn't come in ways thought before

Maybe transition, perhaps, comes from something much more..."

And in that moment in which I saw a great sight

I knew in being true there was no longer that fright

And the life came from within and all finally felt right

Those around me truly affirmed and could see

The woman I was and now truly could be

And although it was others that affirmed this was right

It was the person within that had been shown to the light.

-With Apologies to Dr Seuss and rewritten by Christen Bustani